


the water runs pink

by slightlyworriedhuman



Series: when there's no one even there [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Bad Road Trips, Blood, Brotherly Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Concussions, Eulogies, Flashbacks, Flashbacks to the torture specifically, Funerals, Hallucinations (PTSD-related), Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Harrington, Shared Trauma, Sleep Deprivation, Slightly - Freeform, Steve centric, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, and yes it's platonic. shes lesbian harold, and yuh we got your implied jopper here in the worst way, friend won't sleep? just fuckin' lay on him until he passes out, it makes sense I promise, robin is a good friend and they love each other okay, shower related trauma, time loss, with uh. minimal comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-06-28 15:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19815367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyworriedhuman/pseuds/slightlyworriedhuman
Summary: He only gets out when his lips are purple and his teeth click together in a morbid staccato, leaving the pink water to swirl down the drain, tinting the white porcelain with its hue. When he looks in the mirror, he notes with a vacant, empty surprise that even despite the travesty that is his battle wounds, he looks somewhat cleansed. Somewhat like before, despite the feeling of blood still rising in his throat.Steve is fine. Steve is perfectly fine.





	1. the water runs pink

**Author's Note:**

> anyone else have shower-related trauma? anyone? no? 
> 
> Steve dealing with PTSD and guilt.

The first thing he does when he gets home is shower.

It’s the logical thing to do. The obvious choice of action when covered in blood and grime and fuck knows what else. The paramedics had declared him good to go (he’d lied to them, pretended he couldn’t feel broken ribs and a probable concussion, pretended the puncture wound in his neck was a wasp sting and not a filthy needle full of psychoactive drugs. They had bigger things to worry about, had to care for the ones that mattered, the kids and Ms. Wheeler and Robin) and he had gotten a ride home from Callahan. Poor guy was still reeling from the fact that Hopper (Jim, he called him, but always Hopper or Hop or Chief in Steve’s mind) was dead and gone.

The uniform is so bloody and torn. His blood had stained the lapels an ugly maroon, the tears in the blue fabric reminding him all too much of being shot at by the Russian bastards down in those tunnels. (And what was it with him and tunnels, him and being stuck beneath the earth? Sunlight had never felt so sweet the first time he had emerged, and he still hasn’t felt it yet this time around.)

The water was hot. The water is hot. His brain struggles desperately to catch up, to realize the difference between past and present, the then and now, the danger and the calm. The water pooling at his feet is dark pink, flecks of dirt catching between his toes before swirling down the drain. It  _ stings _ , the scalding hot water rushing over him, needles boring into his back and scalp; he barely even feels it, can only clutch at the wall and try desperately not to fall. All he feels is numb. Sure, he feels pain--how could he not, with his ribs screaming and his eye throbbing and that puncture in his neck like an ant bite--but inside, where he knows he should be feeling relief and worry and triumph and sadness, he just feels empty exhaustion. Numbness. 

He only realizes how long he’s been standing there when the water runs cold, scalding hot needles fading into icy pinpricks against his bruised back. He doesn’t get out; the water is still swirling pink, still trying desperately to wash away the remnants of the nightmarish event. Finally, he raises his hands to jerkily scrape his nails along his scalp, to grab a washcloth and slowly run it down the cuts and bruises on his arms and legs. It’s as if his joints are frozen by the water, unwilling to move, unwilling to try to clean what he knows can’t go away. 

Steve’s been scarred before, sure. He’s hit monsters with fangs protruding from flower shaped heads before, swung a bat full of bent nails and bloodstains at enemies time and time again. He’s braved tunnels and a child with black smoke hissing from his body like a gas leak, braved hells he could never have imagined. What’s so bad about being kidnapped and tortured next to monsters from another dimension? What’s so bad, really?

He only gets out when his lips are purple and his teeth click together in a morbid staccato, leaving the pink water to swirl down the drain, tinting the white porcelain with its hue. When he looks in the mirror, he notes with a vacant, empty surprise that even despite the travesty that is his battle wounds, he looks somewhat cleansed. Somewhat like before, despite the feeling of blood still rising in his throat.

Steve is fine. Steve is perfectly fine.

\--

The day after the incident, Max comes to his doorstep with barely-controlled tears in her eyes. Her family had just gone to go look at caskets, and the building had been so busy they could barely get in the door. Billy’s body had been at the scene of the crime, though, an obvious victim and hero to the citizens of Hawkins (though a victim of what, the public was not privy to). They’d been allowed to push past the crowd of people tearfully running their fingers over glistening wood and pristine floral displays.

Oak wood and satin lining, she says, staring resolutely at a couch cushion even as tears spill from her eyes. He’d been forced to leave his surfboard in California years and years ago, oak painted yellow and green. She’s happy he gets at least that small remembrance of what brought him back. After a moment, he scoots closer to her and wraps his bruised arms around her thin frame, ignores her flaming red hair tickling his nose. He pretends he doesn’t feel her crying against him, hot tears soaking into the shoulder of his t-shirt. In a way, he’s happy she comes to him; he wants to be able to help her in some way, be a rock in this hellish period of upheaval.

That night, he sits in his shower with hot water hailing down upon his bare skin and gasps for breath, feeling as if his throat is clogged with blood again, as if he’s being choked and punched all at once. It hurts, it hurts hurts  _ hurts _ . The water still runs pink around him, the drain leering at him as his blood disappears down into the sewers again. The water cleans him, though, feels like ice water on a burn even if he’s the one that’s freezing cold. In some dim way he doesn’t understand  _ how  _ he’s still hurting so bad, how the water still stains the white porcelain pink; in the back of his mind, though, hidden beneath layers and layers of everything, it makes perfect sense. The water cleans; he is dirty, stained, still somehow in that room. 

It makes sense.

And when he turns the water off, he dries his hair mechanically with a towel, hands moving as if they aren’t his own. He dresses again in boxers and a t-shirt, drags his feet to bed and curls up, a horizontal mimicry of how he had hunched over in the shower just minutes before. 

And Steve is okay.

\--

He’s in a room, arms tied behind his back, the taste of iron filling his mouth and leaking from the corners of his lips. 

_ Who do you work for? _ He spits blood onto a polished black boot, stares up in defiance with the one eye not blacked out with blood. A pale face, lined and cold, smiles back with pure malice, clinical and mask-like. It’s been hours.  _ Hours. _ Everything hurts-- his ribs feel smashed in, his arms stinging from hits that belong in a boxing ring. His face is in agony, a broken nose and swollen eye certainly doing wonders for his appearance. He’s  _ tired _ . And still it continues.

“I work for Scoops Ahoy, asshole,” he finally spits out, nearly choking on the blood in his throat. He barely has time to blink before there’s another fist flying towards his face, ugly laughter in his ears. When he finally blinks his eyes (well, eye, at this point) open, a frisson of terror runs through him. The floor is stained red at this point, how had he not noticed, how, how? He can feel the warmth dripping down his neck and chest, can see the ugly maroon stains on his shirt.

_ Who do you work for? _ It’s in his ear, that disgusting voice, that accent (allophony, Robin had told him as they tried to decipher the code, the reason they sound so different is their vowel map and their habit of allophony with their syllables) that grates on his nerves like barbed wire.  _ I know you’re lying. _

He tries to reply again, tries to choke out the words, but he hears his own voice outside of his head as if he’s standing beside himself.  _ Dustin, yeah, Henderson. That’s the one, that’s… _ The door before him opens, and they push in a frightened face, so young and scared and pale beneath that mop of curly hair. The blood running so eagerly through and out of his veins turns cold as ice. He had failed him, hadn’t he? He had told them who Dustin was. 

There’s blood on Dustin, too, blood on all of them-- it stains Steve’s white socks, stains the greenish-brown outfit of the Russian leering down at him, runs down Dustin’s chin and mixes with the tears streaming from his eyes. He was never missing that many teeth before, was he?

_ Who do you work for? _ A gun leveled at Dustin’s head. Robin’s screams in the back of his mind, shrieking his name.  _ Who do you work for? _

“I work--” He gags on the heavy taste of iron, cloying and overwhelming as it fills his mouth and runs down his chin. It hurts, it  _ hurts.  _ “Work for--”

_ Who do you work for? _ He watches as a skinny thumb pulls back the safety on the gun, watches as those blue eyes already overflowing with tears seem to blow out in mind-boggling panic. He isn’t being hit, but he aches, like his whole body is being stabbed and kicked at once, like his soul is being ripped out. Robin sobs behind him, every gasping cry an ice pick through his ears.  _ Who do you work for? _ He’s  _ trying, _ can’t get it out past the blood and the feeling of his heart sitting on his tongue and the taste of hot iron. Dustin’s eyes are so wide with fear. His hands are so small. He’s so  _ small. _

_ Bang. _

The scream bubbles up past the blood, a muddle of words that meld and blend into each other like sticky syrup. His hands and feet are still stuck, pulling and flailing, and everything is so dark and where’s Robin where’s Dustin where is he is he alive are they alive is Dustin  _ alive-- _

“What the  _ fuck, dude, shit--” _

“Who’s goddamn dying--”

“Turn on the  _ LIGHTS, _ you  _ moron--” _

And he’s laying beside a couch in his ex-girlfriend’s basement, voices all around him and footsteps every which way, (and he can’t breathe, he can’t think, all he can hear is that bang bang bang  _ bang) _ and there’s a hand on his shoulder and he screams, twisting away and kicking out. It’s the Russian, brown hair curling around a freckled face, wide blue eyes staring staring  _ staring _ and--

“Steve, Steve, holy shit--” He’s scrambled back onto the couch before his brain finally catches up, finally sees what’s before him. The kids are in various states of disarray, hair rumpled, eyes wide with shock and confusion as they stare up at where he’s crouched on the couch. Nancy is favouring one leg, rubbing at her thigh, no anger in her face. A lamp is on, lighting up the nest of blankets they had built earlier in the night, light glinting off Mike’s giant Dungeons and Dragons almanac that lays on the floor beside the couch. Did he kick it off? 

He can see them before him, can see that he’s in a basement, warm and safe. The fabric of the couch is rough and pliant beneath his clenched fists, free from sheets and ropes. His throat, though, his throat is so full of blood and he can  _ feel  _ it still, can feel it drying and cracking on his collarbone and soaking into his shirt, and he can still smell cognac on the words on  _ Who do you work for? _ and see those wide blue eyes--

\--and after a moment of freezing, he all but launches himself at Dustin, wraps his arms around the frazzled boy and sinks to the ground, clutching him like a lifeline. 

“Steve, what--” His thoughts are racing a million miles an hour, the echo of his drugged words resonating in his head, and all he can mumble into Dustin’s messy hair is “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry you’re safe you’re safe I’m so  _ sorry--” _ How could he have betrayed him, how could he have  _ told _ them who he was? Dustin’s his  _ responsibility _ , more than that-- his  _ friend,  _ his _ partner. _ He can’t even hear the anxious muttering behind them, barely registers Dustin’s arms hesitantly wrapping around his neck as he rocks back and forth, pulling Dustin close as if he can somehow shield him from the world. It’s all his fault Dustin could have died, him and his stupid,  _ stupid  _ big mouth. “I’m-- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have told them, I should have--”

“Whoa, whoa, dude, Steve, slow down.” Dustin’s voice is soft, his lisp exaggerated by sleep. “Told who what-- Oh.  _ Oh.” _ The cogs turn in Dustin’s head (and there had been a  _ gun _ against those curls and part of him knows there hadn’t been but god oh god there  _ could have been _ because of  _ him _ ) and his embrace tightens around Steve, pulling him closer. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay, dude, it’s okay. You were drugged. You couldn’t have… I shouldn’t have said that shit, you couldn’t help it. It’s okay. I’m fine. You’re fine. Okay?” He’s  _ not _ fine, the blood still clogs his throat and he can  _ feel _ the wet, sticky liquid running down his shirt and his arms, he’s going to stain Dustin, too, isn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” he says, because it’s all he  _ can  _ say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry--” Is he holding Dustin or is Dustin holding him? His hands are so  _ small _ where they clutch at Steve’s loose nightshirt, so small and young and god,  _ god _ , he can feel the blood spreading. His hands are so  _ small. _

“It’s ok, Steve, it’s okay, we’re all okay. It’s not your fault, it’s not, I promise, Robin would say the exact same thing--” His voice is quiet enough that Steve knows only he can hear it, knows that they never really told the others. That’s okay. That’s perfectly okay. He doesn’t need to stain anyone else.

At some point, Nancy pries him away from Dustin and helps him up the stairs, drives him home murmuring comfort the whole way. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to be home-- the rooms are too clean and empty and the layer of dust on the mantel hurts him every time he looks at it, but she’s guiding him over the threshold and joking about how if she could carry him they’d look like a married couple. The first one to grace this house in a month, the first one to actually speak in the same room. She ask-tells him to go to sleep, does he want her to stay, does he need someone? 

The water pours over him like boiling rain, and it swirls in pink puddles at his feet. Just watch Dustin, make sure he’s okay, I’m sorry, I’m  _ sorry.  _

His hands are so  _ small, _ Nance.

The still-bloody name tag stares at him from his dresser. He doesn’t sleep again that morning.

But it’s okay. Steve is okay. Steve is just fine.

\--

He ignores the doorbell when it rings the next day, pretends he doesn’t hear it as he lays in bed. It’s a routine he falls into too easily-- lay in bed, pretend to sleep with eyes wide open. Wait until the doorbell has stopped ringing, until the knocking is gone again. Pull himself out of bed like his broken ribs are almost healed already and haul himself to the shower. The water is cleansing, scalding cold and freezing hot and always red pooling around him. Sometimes he moves to the couch, lowers himself onto the soft surface and stares at the hardwood floor until the sun glares in his unblinking eyes. It’s enough that he can still claim to be alive.

He can’t sleep. He  _ won’t  _ sleep. Not when it brings him back there, not when he has to hear Robin screaming and see tears streaming down Dustin’s face and hear that voice hissing like poison gas  _ Who do you work for? _ in his ear. It wanders into his mind more than once that what if that drug is still fucking him up? What if he’s going crazy and whatever the fuck was in that goddamn syringe is killing his mind? 

The doorbell rings again, again and again and again, but his door is locked and he can pretend he’s deaf to the world. The only thing he feels he can really hear right now is the slur of a foreign accent, a question on loop with ugly laughter tracing around it. 

The water is red when he realizes he’s crying again. How stupid. He shouldn’t be crying now. It’s over, isn’t it? He’s home, curled up in a porcelain tub with water to wash away the blood, freezing hot and just strong enough that he can feel the droplets through his shirt. stinging the bruises that are slowly fading from his back. He didn’t have it as bad as some of the others, he didn’t lose a brother or get possessed or almost die from a flesh monster borne of a sad old woman in a fucking hospital, so  _ why is he crying? _

He doesn’t even notice that the knocking is on his bathroom door until it’s already opening, doesn’t realize someone else is in there to watch him stare at the tiles of the wall and cry until their hand is on his arm. 

When they touch him, he can’t help but flinch back, can’t help but fear for a moment that somehow he’s being taken again; instead of that cold, lined face, though, Robin’s grey eyes stare at him with worry.

She all but hoists him out of the tub, mutters about ‘jesus, Harrington, your lips are  _ blue _ ’ as she half-leads him to the couch. When she sits next to him, he knows she’s definitely not doing great, either; her hair is frazzled and the bags beneath her eyes are deep purple, weary and tired. Between how he’s curled with his mouth hidden behind his knees and how she fidgets like a scared kid, they certainly look the part of trauma.

“Not the only one who can’t sleep, then?” he finally mumbles. Her worry cracks into a grin devoid of all humour as she huffs out what could be a laugh or a sigh of despair. 

“God, no. Every time I close my eyes I can’t help but…” Remember. Yeah. That’s the hardest part. “How do you… make it  _ stop? _ I just-- fuck.” She sighs, leans back against the cushion as she pushes a hand through her hair. “We were  _ kidnapped,  _ dude. By fucking Russians. Before fighting--  _ that. _ ” 

He knows all too well. Bet on that.

“I don’t know what to do,” she confesses after a moment of silence, still gazing at a damp Steve. “I just…” She doesn’t need to say it. He knows.

“Every time I shower I still see blood,” he finally murmurs, gaze falling to the hardwood floor before the couch. “I don’t--I know it isn’t there any more but it’s still  _ there. _ ” It hangs over him, heavy like a water-laden storm cloud.

“Wanna know something stupid?” she finally asks. He looks over at her in questioning, forces himself to blink away images of blood on her fair skin. “And I mean, like, really stupid. I, uh…” Another huffed laugh, not quite as despairing but surely slightly ashamed. “So my bedroom is painted white, right? Been like that since I was born. But I… That first night, after all of it. I walked in and it… I felt like I was back there. I have this little desk in the corner, and I saw the chair in front of it and I broke down  _ crying. _ I haven’t set foot in there for the past… what is it, five days? Six? My mom’s been having to go in there to get my clothes.” 

It doesn’t sound stupid at all to him. He knows he’s lucky his parents decided on a shitty beige and grey scheme for their walls, lucky his bathroom is painted peach. 

“I haven’t been able to wear blue,” he whispers in reply. “Looks too much like that fuckin’ uniform. Stupid goddamn sailor theme.” She  _ does _ laugh at that, and he’s happy she does. She needs to laugh at something, needs something other than quiet despair to fill those hollow grey eyes. Finally, she scoots closer, pulls him against her, runs a thumb over his cheek. He didn’t realize tears were still there. 

“I don’t know how to make it stop,” she murmurs against his hair. Slowly, he unfolds his arms from around his knees and wraps them around her, trying not to wince as the action pulls oddly at a healing rib. “I just… I get nightmares, every single night, and they won’t  _ stop. _ I keep seeing that  _ thing _ and ending up back there underground, and I just keep hearing you  _ scream _ and thinking you’re  _ dead _ and--” Her voice, slowly growing more frantic, chokes off with a quiet sob; her arms tighten around Steve. 

“Hey, hey--” He shifts so he can actually look at her. Her eyes are full of tears, unshed but threatening to spill over her eyelashes. “I-- I get that too. That’s… why I haven’t been sleeping. I keep just…” It hurts to admit it aloud, hurts to stop shoving it away into the filing cabinet of trauma he’s accumulated over the past two years (longer than that, if he’s being honest, but these past two years certainly outweigh the rest). “I keep going back there too. Hearing you screaming. Seeing…” He swallows, raises a hand to rub his neck. The bump where he’d been injected with that goddamn drug still twinges like a bruise at the touch. “I keep wondering what would have happened if they… if they actually found Dustin. After they drugged us. I  _ told _ them his name, I… I put him in  _ danger, _ Robin. Fuck, there could still--” Could still be others out there, others who didn’t get caught, others who know Dustin’s name and can find him and hurt him and--

He doesn’t even realize that his nails are digging stripes into his neck until Robin’s hand is around his, pulling it off of his skin, pulling him close again. It hurts. It  _ hurts. _ Her arms are around him and she’s whispering soothing words into his ear, when was he crying, did he ever even  _ stop? _ Her shirt is soft in his clenched hands, soft against his cheek, and she holds him both so softly his heart breaks and so tightly he knows she’s the only thing keeping him together.

“He’s so  _ small,” _ he whispers into her neck as she holds him, painfully reminiscent of how he had held Dustin just (two? three?) nights ago. “I don’t--he keeps putting himself in danger and that’s  _ his _ decision but  _ I _ told them, I told them his name and they  _ knew _ and they, they could, I don’t--” He can feel the blood choking his throat again, can feel it running down his face and onto Robin’s shirt.

“It wasn’t your fault, Steve. You were  _ drugged. _ We  _ both _ were.” Her voice is firm, despite the sound of tears edging at her throat. “You can’t blame yourself for that.” How can he  _ not, _ though? He curls closer to her, doesn’t fight the small sob that hitches his shoulders up and sends a flare of pain through his ribs.

“He’s so  _ small, _ Robin.” His hands tighten on her soft shirt again. Not rope, just soft flannel, worn and warm. “His hands are so  _ small. _ ”

“I know, Steve.” 

She holds him until the sun comes up, until both of their tears have been spilled on each others clothing. He’s  _ exhausted _ , tired in a way that makes it feel as if his very bones are begging to rest. He can’t sleep. He can’t go back there again.

“I need to go shower.” Her grip tightens on him when he tries weakly to unfold himself from the ball he’s in, curled against her with her limbs cradling him as if he’s a small child (his hands are so  _ small _ ).

“You don’t, Steve.” But he feels so  _ unclean _ , like there’s blood all over him again and like his eye is swollen shut and like the wound on his neck is sending poison through him once again. Look at the swirling pink water, see it run between your toes and tell yourself that for this moment, for this one moment, you are clean, unscathed, unscarred. Tell yourself you’re fine as the water washes the blood away. “Stay here.” A hand slides down from where it presses against his back to pull his knees against her side, her foot locking over his. Entanglement, once a torture, now a comfort. “Okay?”

And she knows his trauma better than anyone else, knows better than anyone else why he needs to, why he shouldn’t. Who is he to deny the facts, when she had so willingly stuck by his side through it all?

“Okay.”


	2. swing from a star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It probably isn’t safe to be driving like this, he reflects absently, but what in his life can be defined as ‘safe’ anymore? Safe is a long-absent friend, gone but not forgotten, the feeling of laughing in an ice cream parlour and of curling up in someone else’s bed. That feeling is gone, now. So he keeps driving, keeps listening to the slightly unintelligible rhythms of thoughts left too long on their own, left too long untreated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote the second half of this three times y'all. I am tired.

He sleeps, finally, the waves of exhaustion too much to resist after days of denial. The nightmares come, still, but they’re foggy and hard to remember in the morning, which is better than nothing, he supposes. Robin’s come and gone once or twice since she had found him in the tub, coming to sit beside him and talk about nothing until the numb horror in both of their heads is somewhat assuaged. The last time she comes, he can see an awful fear in her eyes, poorly masked behind a wavering smile; he pulls her inside, almost carries her to the couch and gets all up in her space while he turns on the TV. 

She cries for a bit, once he’s made it clear that it okay to, that he  _ knows _ the terror she feels. He holds her, rubs her back as she shakes in his arms; later, they watch a dumb cartoon from when their parents were kids, and she complains to him much more animatedly than usual that some country singer’s cover of the song playing is much better than this. He pretends he can’t hear the tears still in her throat, just dramatically disagrees for the sheer sake of giving her something to laugh at. It helps, he thinks, knowing they both share the same pain, the same avoidance of what had happened. It’s nice to know they’re not alone.

Robin says she wants to stay more, wishes she could. He’s her best friend. (Neither mention that outside of the children and Nancy and Jonathan, they’re each others’ only friends at this point. Nobody wants to be seen with the teens who hang out with kids, who have a look in their eye like they’ve seen the world end and survived. Nobody wants to be with the ones tied up in a mystery of death and pain that’s shaken the whole town.) Her parents, though, they’re still on the fence on whether or not to ground her for being found at Starcourt the night of the incident, covered in blood. The one good thing about not having parents around is that nobody’s there to ground you when you get mixed up in bad stuff (not to mention the bonus of not having to explain his screams to him when he wakes, not having to explain the showers that scald his skin until they freeze him. From her account, it isn’t nice to have to explain nightmares night after night).

And oh, god, on the topic of bad stuff, he’s currently  _ drowning  _ in it. 

Everything had been fine, had been okay,  _ Steve _ had been  _ fine. _ Just fine, just perfect. 

And then he had turned on the TV and had heard the unmistakable sounds of a Russian accent on the news and suddenly everything was white again, white and red and cold blue eyes staring into his as a fist drove into his gut. He doesn’t remember the inbetween from the couch to the bathtub; memory comes in weak flashes of falling off the couch, tripping on the stairs and banging his shin on the railing, nearly ripping a nail off trying to get the bathroom door open. The water is still cold when he jerks back the curtain and steps in, catching himself on the tile as it pours over him; he doesn’t feel when it heats up, if it heats up. All there is is the pressure of pins and needles, the feeling of blood staining his face and clothes, blood caught in his throat and a throbbing in his neck. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts hurts  _ hurts _ . He thought it was  _ over, _ had to be, had to be after everything. 

But here he is, gasping for breath with hands clawing at his throat, staring into porcelain that leers back at him. The water isn’t pink, no, that would be too kind; he can see the red swirling in it, dark and reminiscent of that night in the tunnels. He can  _ taste _ the iron. It hurts. It  _ hurts.  _ A sob rises in his throat with the blood, and he crumples to the ground when it shakes him viciously from the wall. His head whips into the wall, and he cries out in pain as specks of black and white fill his vision. Shit.  _ Shit. _ Squeezing his eyes shut, he struggles to gasp in a breath again, pushes himself against the back of the tub as the water pours mercilessly down from above. The spot where his head had connected with the wall throbs with agony, and when he opens his eyes, he sees a red streak against the white tiles slowly being rinses from the wall. 

It’s all he can do to breathe in enough that his sobs have fuel. It’s all he can do to wrap his arms around his legs, fingers digging into the soft cloth of his shorts and raking lines down his thighs. Everything hurts so  _ much _ , and he swears that through the thundering water, muffled slightly from his blow to the wall, he can hear Robin screaming again. His eyes close, and all he can see through the flashes of white are blue eyes swimming in tears, and he sobs as the water closes in over his head, begging it to cleanse him of the horrors that swarm his mind and body. 

\--

He doesn’t quite remember the couple following days, only knows that he finds himself with an ice pack pressed against his head more than once. He knows that the phone rings more than once, a distant sound muffled by closed doors; he spends a lot of time in his room, he’s pretty sure. If he eats, he can’t quite remember; the fridge seems sparser than it did a few days ago, though, so that’s good at least. But he can’t bring himself to actually  _ do _ anything, can’t make himself walk out the door or open the windows. How long has it been since the monster? How long has it been since he first found himself coughing up blood, staring into glassy, cruel eyes?

_ Who do you work for? Who do you work for? Who, who, who? _

He starts to hear thumping on doors when there’s nothing there, start to hear trace echoes of screams. He won’t let himself sleep. Yes, he had before, and the nightmares had been muted, but last time, when he had been fading in and out of consciousness on the bathroom floor, head still oozing blood onto a once-orange rug (and he pretends he doesn’t even know the word concussion, vehemently tells himself that if he refuses to acknowledge the damage that it will somehow undo itself), he had heard the bang of a gunshot again and felt something warm splatter against his leg. He  _ won’t _ go back there again; a part of him, the part that pushes its way to the forefront of his mind with spikes of fear and panic, is half convinced he never left. 

Some modicum of comfort is found when he finally gives in to the urge to drag the nail bat out from the closet, to let it rest beside him when he lays on the bed or sits on the couch. (The TV stays off. His head still aches from splitting it against the shower tiles.) Even with it beside him, he can’t help feeling unsafe, feeling as if his skin is crawling with ants, sticky with blood. He  _ hates  _ it, hates it with a burning passion. Showers help again, though he knows at some point the water bill is going to need to be addressed. Watching the pink water gurgle down the drain is spreading salve on a wound, a bandaid over a bullet hole. Helpful in the moment, but god, his skin is near raw from the amount of scalding water he’s poured over it in the past few days.

At one point, he finds himself blinking from place to place as if teleporting. One moment, the kitchen staring into the sink as he washes his hands with steaming water; the next, he’s staring through an upstairs window at the pool, blinking furiously and trying to tell himself that it  _ isn’t _ pink, there  _ isn’t _ any blood. (It doesn’t matter that nobody’s gone in that pool since Barbara went missing, almost two years ago. The last time he had even considered going near that body of water, every cell in his body had screamed in protest. That had been a year ago, now.) He doesn’t quite know how it’s happening, only knows that every clock in the house seems to show a different time. 11:29 on one, 3:32, on another, 7:03 the next. They must be broken. 

It’s a hellish limbo, he thinks, when he looks down at his hands and finds his cuticles bleeding (had he been biting them? picking at them? he can’t quite recall). Actual blood, compared to the phantom feeling of it. He isn’t sleeping, won’t let himself do that; he doesn’t think this quite counts as being awake, though, not when he keeps hearing snide comments he can’t make out and keeps seeing flashes of someone’s eyes around every corner. The one time he actually turns on the radio, it says that it’s only been twelve days since the incident at Starcourt, only nine since he had slept over in the Wheeler’s basement and seen that nightmare, seven since Robin had come the first time, five since the last, four since he had awoken on the bathroom floor with a bloodstain spreading form under his aching head, who do you work for, who do you work for? 

(He had turned the radio off and thrown it as hard as he could away from him, feeling as if it would burn his hands if that voice kept fucking talking. It had smashed against the front door, breaking into small pieces. Later, he wonders what all those pieces are doing on his floor.)

He feels like he’s going crazy. Fucking  _ crazy.  _

And after the third time he blinks his eyes open to a mug dropped on the kitchen floor, something inside him just goes ‘fuck it.’ He hasn’t left the house for days, hasn’t brought himself to set foot outside for fear of stepping straight into a big white room. But, god,  _ god, _ if he stays here any longer he’s going to lose his fucking mind. 

Ten minutes after this revelation, he’s in his car, pulling out of his driveway and gunning it down the road. He doesn’t know where he’s going, just knows that he’s going  _ out, _ far away from the hell that’s domineered his house and mind, far away from the sounds of screams and slamming doors that don’t exist outside of his head. 

At first, he keeps the radio off, terrified to hear a voice there that doesn’t belong. His own thoughts are loud enough, confused and gibberish even to himself; even with his head yelling, he keeps blinking and finding himself much further along the road than he should be. It probably isn’t safe to be driving like this, he reflects absently, but what in his life can be defined as ‘safe’ anymore? Safe is a long-absent friend, gone but not forgotten, the feeling of laughing in an ice cream parlour and of curling up in someone else’s bed. That feeling is gone, now. So he keeps driving, keeps listening to the slightly unintelligible rhythms of thoughts left too long on their own, left too long untreated. 

It’s fine at first; he drives, watches the sun skip across the sky like a child playing hopscotch. The feeling of blood still remains, but is somehow dulled, as if being further away from a place to fix the feeling means his mind is forced to just accept it. It’s nice, he thinks. At some point, though, he gets tired of listening to his own thoughts against the rolling of wheels against pavement, decides that even if he hears something on the radio, he’s  _ moving, _ now, can get away from whoever he hears. Can’t get caught in a small room when you’re in a car driving seventy-five over state lines. 

He’s accompanied by the sounds of Mr. and Mrs. Garvey lamenting supermarkets when he reads a sign that’s barely visible in the dark light,  _ Welcome to Lake Geneva, IL! _ How long has he been driving? He’s so far from home, now, and for a moment, the thought almost comforts him. Far from the monsters, far from the Russians, far from the broken mugs on his kitchen floor and the upcoming funeral of a man rejoining his daughter. That’s okay with him, when he just focuses on those facts, just concentrates on those little pieces of information that are enough to make him press down on the gas pedal even harder. Ignore the fact that he’s so far away from Robin, from Dustin, from Nancy and Jonathan and all of the kids.

And then the radio goes to static, and it all goes to hell, because everything always does. 

“--eve! Steve, where--” He slams on the brakes, nearly lands himself in a ditch as he spins the wheel in his hands, He’s lucky there’s nobody else on the road at this hour, lucky nobody else would be so stupid as to be driving down a country back road at one in the morning. “I’m looking for Steve Harrington, this is a  _ code red, _ has anybody--” Dustin’s voice fades into static again, and Steve desperately slams a hand on the radio scanner, catching his voice again as it goes up the frequencies. Just the same message, calling out his name, desperation in his friend’s young voice.

And so what if as soon as his car is facing the moon again, he can feel the sticky feeling of blood dripping on his skin again, can feel his head pounding again? Dustin is calling for him, and god, he’d rather die than leave the kid defenseless again, betray him again. 

He keeps a hand firmly on the tuning dial, listening to Dustin, making sure he isn’t just imagining it again, making sure it isn’t just a dream. Eventually, Dustin’s voice disappears, replaced with a different voice that’s just as familiar; her voice is orange and loud and desperate as she calls his name, cycling through the stations and probably leaving anyone listening to the radio at this too-late hour hopelessly confused. Robin stays there, calling his name as he drives towards the Illinois state lines, only staying on the road by some sheer miracle. 

The sun is long since up when the radio has gone silent, Robin’s voice calling out a final plea into the airwaves as he crosses into Indiana. He doesn’t quite remember how he got here, why he feels so stiff and pained and sticky all over; his thoughts are desperately loud again, ringing out in the car as if spoken. God, what a state he’s in. 

And when he finally runs out of gas, he’s close enough to the Byers’ that he just lets the car roll to a stop on the side of the road, forces his stiff legs to carry him out and to the driveway. He can’t even feel his hands, tight as they had been clenched around the steering wheel; he’s in a terrible state, he knows. But when he sees the house he had once defended with a bat and fire in the distance down the driveway, hears a yell of his name and sees a small figure positively barreling towards him, it’s as if some life is sparked again in his chest, painful as it is. Dustin hits him, arms wrapping around him, and he goes down, letting himself drop down to his knees in the grass sprouting between the bits of gravel. 

“You’re okay, you’re okay, shit,  _ shit--” _ Dustin’s voice is high and shaky, and Steve can’t even muster up the energy to reply, just embraces Dustin and pulls him close, lets his face fall onto Dustin’s puffy blue vest. He can explain later why he left, have Dustin explain later what’s wrong; for now, he just  _ breathes _ , tries to ignore how Dustin’s hands shake where they grip his shirt, how Dustin’s breath is more muffled cries than words against his shoulder. (He’ll never get over how small he is, just four years younger but so infinitely small, never forgive himself for endangering that youth.)

After a minute, he realizes there are other hands pulling at him, guiding him up, Dustin breaking away to help him stand; he’s all but herded inside, Robin on one side, gripping his arm, Dustin mirroring her on the other. They push him onto the couch, and Ms. Byers is before him, her face stained with tears and her gentle hands pushing him into the cushions when he tries to get up. He doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to let himself go back to what he’d gone so far to avoid. Is that so wrong, so terrible of him?

“It isn’t wrong, sweetie, it isn’t wrong, but you need to  _ sleep, _ okay?” When her hands pull away, they’re red and wet, and he realizes with a miserable startle that he’s stained her, blood rising back to coat him. How terrible, how rude. He needs to shower, needs to wash it away again, needs to--

Robin all but drops on top of him, tears in her eyes as she forces him down on the couch. 

“Goddamnit, you  _ idiot, _ stop it!” He flinches back as she yells, too startled to try to beat back the hands that pin him down. Dustin watches him with wide, fearful eyes, and he can hear footsteps coming down the hall, Jonathan’s face appearing distantly over Ms. Byers’ shoulder. “Just-- just  _ stop it,  _ Steve, okay? You’re  _ here,  _ you’re  _ safe!” _ Her grey eyes are swimming, red-rimmed and looking almost as tired as he himself feels. “Just-- Just  _ go to sleep,  _ Steve,  _ please. _ ” 

He blinks, and Dustin’s beside him again, forcing himself under Robin and wrapping his arms around Steve again, a small voice begging him to just sleep, please, Steve, you’re  _ scaring me. _ Oh. He doesn’t want that, does he? Kid’s been scared enough, over the past couple years, couple weeks, couple days. 

Another blink, and the lights in the room are out, the combined weight of Robin and Dustin on him feeling somehow detached from his actual body.

Another, another, another--

\--

The room is white and red, his uniform blue, a hideous mockery of the flag waved so proudly on the fourth of July. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was supposed to mock, supposed to add insult to injury. 

The screams are still there, tears and pain and a loud loud  _ bang  _ like the fireworks in the mall,  _ bang  _ and the red flying everywhere and the screams that are so very very loud in his head,  _ bang _ and blue eyes disappearing, blue eyes and a  _ scream-- _

\--

Steve jolts awake, every system shooting pure terror through his body, adrenaline snapping his eyes open as the screams from his dreams ring out in a much darker room than the white room he had been held. There’s heavy weight writhing on top of him, and by some miracle he forces himself not to hit it away, recognizes it a minute later as Robin. Robin, who shakes and struggles as if she’s trying to run. Robin, whose screams are ringing through the room, his own nightmare come true, at least in part. He’s not even fully conscious of his actions as he sits them up, curling around her protectively, pulling her close and trying to catch her gaze; she shrieks, eyes flying open but obviously not recognizing him, and hits at his chest. 

“Shh, Robin,  _ Robin, _ it’s okay, it’s okay--” Footsteps race down the hall, and he can see from the corner of his eye Dustin hovering nearby, picking himself off of the floor. “It’s  _ okay, _ Robin, I’m here, I’m here--” Her scream tapers off into a gasping sob, and he can see the moment she realizes that he’s actually there, that she’s not dreaming. She all but collapses against him, face falling into the crook of his neck, and he scoops her closer, rocks her back and forth as she sobs, an arm wrapping around his neck and pulling his face into her hair. “It’s okay, you’re not back there. we’re not back there, we’re here, we’re here, it’s okay, Robin…” 

There’s a light touch on his shoulder, and even though he  _ knows _ it’s just Ms. Byers or Jon or Dustin, something inside him shrieks just as loud as Robin just had, it’s as if some switch is flipped that blocks out that knowledge faster than a light flickering off. Twisting to shield Robin, he throws out an elbow, turning his head up to dart his eyes at whoever it is who just touched him. There’s a pained grunt, and he pushes himself closer to the couch as Jonathan retreats, doesn’t stop glaring at him even as the other rubs his ribs with wide eyes until he’s across the room. He pretends he can’t see Dustin hastily retreating also, pretends he doesn’t know the boy thinks he might hurt him if provoked. He would never hurt Dustin, not if he had a gun pressed straight to Steve’s head (and  _ oh, _ that’s imagery he needs to banish from his head immediately lest he fall apart while he tries to hold Robin together).

Robin grips at him desperately, hand knotting in his hair right where he had cracked his head against the tiles, and the jolt of pain is enough to tear his attention away, to remind himself firmly that they’re not in danger (and that’s the very thing he’s trying to convince  _ her  _ of, idiot, he needs to get his shit together for her already, come  _ on _ ). He doesn’t stop whispering to her, though, doesn’t pause in his rocking, just moves his hands so he can pet her hair and rub her back gently as she shakes. The presence now at his back recedes, and he lets his eyes close, hugs her ever closer even though it hurts his ribs, hurts his back. Her sobs solidify slightly into words, scarce enough that he knows only he can hear them, and he silences himself, trying to understand.

“I thought-- thought--  _ dead--” _ It’s all he can understand before another sob bursts out anew, and guilt twists in his gut like the drug had right before he had gotten sick. Of course she had thought he was dead; she already had to deal with him disappearing when they were with the Russians and returning near death, and now he had up and disappeared on her, vanished without a word. 

“I’m so sorry, Robin, I’m so sorry, I’m not dead, I’m not, I promise--” He stops petting her hair, instead shifts her so her ear is over his chest, even though craning his head to still rest against hers strains his neck. “See? I’m alive, I’m alive, I  _ promise. _ ” He may not feel it, but he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, and corpses don’t have that, now do they? It’s tough to bend his knees with how stiff they are, but he does, lifts her legs up with his own so she’s curled in a little ball against him. Much more comfortable. Much easier to cradle her, much easier to muffle her sobs against his neck. “I’m not leaving again, I promise, I  _ promise, _ Robin, it’s okay, it’s okay.” 

Distantly, he hears a soft voice saying “Jon, Dustin, c’mon, come over here,” and hears footsteps receding back down the hallway. He knows Dustin is probably going to tell her exactly why they’re both so fucked up in the head right now, as much as he’d like to keep that from everyone who doesn’t know (and god, he needs to apologize to Dustin, tell him he’ll never hurt him, not for anyone. part of him wishes Dustin was here to pull close, too, to assuage his own fears alongside Robin’s), but he can’t find it in himself to care anymore. At least he’s a bit more awake now, can think back to the last time he had held Robin like this, even though she hadn’t been nearly so hysterical.

“What was that song you said you liked, Rob? Somethin’ about a star, right?” He knows perfectly well, just wants to try to get her mind on something other than the terror. “It’s okay, Robin, it’s okay. I got it. ‘Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar, and be better off than you are?’” Shifting again, he rocks her back and forth to the beat of the song, half murmuring the lyrics into her ear. No nightmare can carry a tune, he thinks, no terrors of Russians and loneliness and death abound will hold her and sing a silly song to her. So he will, will hold her until her tears are dry and she can tell him he can’t sing for shit, will hold her until she can sleep without nightmare ever again. 

It’s a job he’d do more willingly than anything else, he thinks, humming still as her sobs begins to weaken, her trembling begins to lessen. For her, for Dustin, for Erica if the kid needs it. For any of them. He might not be able to help himself, but he knows without a doubt he would take all of their nightmares in a heartbeat, even though he can’t even handle his own. 

“You could be swingin’ on a star,  _ hey, _ you could be swingin’ on a star…” It’s easy to ignore the feeling of pain when he knows she’s slowly calming, easy to push away any fear of bleeding onto her when he feels her loosen the grip on his shirt to wrap her arm around him instead. 

Yeah, he can’t protect himself, but he can at least protect her, right? He can at least protect the others. That has to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to Dave Van Ronk and, well, his cover of Swing On A Star was too perfect for this-- I can just imagine them singing it together and laughing. I highly recommend it (and yes, it is better than the original Little Lulu version). 
> 
> I'm probably going to write a chapter from Dustin's perspective at some point for this, and possibly one more from Steve's. For now, though, it's time to tackle the trauma from a different angle! I'm making this part of a series, so the next work in the series will be that. 
> 
> Have a lovely day!


	3. it's okay to be otherwise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he jerks awake with a whimper, the first thing that he realizes is that there’s pain and blood in his mouth, and that’s all it takes to convince him that it’s all real. The taste is harsh and the blood is warm in his mouth, and when he raises a hand to his face, he feels it dripping from the corner of his mouth onto his thumb. Pulling his hand away, he stares hard at it, waits for it to swim away or pale as the blood before has (and what a thing, to realize that you’ve been seeing things from sheer stress!), but it stays painfully real, a dark red that slowly trickles down to the quick of his thumbnail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing the end of this and realizing I'm crying: dammit  
> Wrote this chapter to Orange Nickelodeon by Mr. and Mrs. Garvey, highly recommend it for that extra flavour.

The others don’t come back in, even as Robin slowly quiets, slowly drifts back to sleep in Steve’s arms, her hand falling from where it wraps around him to rest on the couch. There’s salt drying on his shirt and neck, and even as he clutches Robin close, still rocking her slowly, he feels exhaustion warring with the panicked alertness. He doesn’t want to go back to sleep, even as he feels his eyes fighting to close; something inside him screams to stay awake for Robin, to watch over her as the clock ticks quietly in the empty room. That’s fine by him. Logic is easy to ignore, that part of his brain trying desperately to remember the past week pushing him to sleep, to rest, to quit starving himself of sleep; Robin is here, and the feeling of damp fabric where her tears had fallen on his shirt is more than enough to keep him awake.

He’s not sure how much time has passed since she finally fell asleep, just knows that dim light is starting to slowly filter in through the window in the kitchen. His eyes feel dry and sore from staring at the wall across from him for god knows how long, but every time he blinks, he feels his head drop slightly. Can’t have that, not with Robin finally secure again is his arms, shoulders rising and falling against him. Not when he needs to watch over her, to protect her better than he did before.

(And it’s funny, really, how even when he’s in a house he knows is safe, his mind still blaring klaxon alarms at every little creak of wood. It’s like it hasn’t fully registered that nightmare has ended, that they’re out of the woods now; how can it, when the nightmares  _ of _ the nightmare don’t stop?)

When he hears a quiet footstep on the floor behind him, his tired brain screams into alertness, and he whips around, almost reaching down to grab a nonexistent weapon. His eyes meet wide blue ones, and he freezes as Dustin takes a step back, hates the wariness he sees in the younger boy’s face. Relief sweeps through him at his presence, though, and he feels himself slump slightly. 

“Dustin.” At the sound of his name, Dustin seems to realize that Steve isn’t about to hit him away as he had Jonathan earlier (and he knows he needs to apologize to him, but he doesn’t  _ want _ to, not after feeling so sure he had been an enemy), and he cautiously steps closer. “Here, c’mere--” He gently untangles his hand from Robin’s hair and reaches out for Dustin, gently catches his wrist to tug him closer.

“Are-- Is she okay?” Dustin whispers, gaze darting down to Robin for a moment before meeting Steve’s again. 

“Yeah.” For now, at least, she’s alright; her breathing stays even, even as she shifts slightly. Robin’s okay, now, and that knowledge seems to raise the dam again for Steve’s own problems. With a shaky sigh, he wraps an arm around Dustin, and the kid easily sinks onto the couch next to him, hugging him with careful avoidance of Robin. “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay.” It isn’t, it really isn’t; he’s already let down Dustin once before, and he feels terrible for scaring him so many times in such a short space. “Are  _ you _ okay, though?” Steve pauses, shrugs slightly. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” For the moment, at least. Dustin fixes his gaze on Steve’s face, though, narrows his eyes accusingly. 

“Did you sleep? After she woke up?” No. Of course not, how could he sleep when he needed to watch over her? The compulsion to stay awake is still there, a drive more powerful than caffeine. “Dude, you need to _sleep._ _Please._ ” 

“I  _ can’t, _ Dustin.” (Even aside from that bone deep need to watch over Robin in case something happens, to watch over Dustin, too, he can’t ignore the part of him that would rather be beaten up again than face that white room in his mind once again. Not that he’ll admit that, though.) “Robin… she--”

“Robin’s asleep, Steve.” Pushing himself closer to Steve on the couch and effectively cornering him, he pins him to the cushions with a glare. “And you aren’t. Even though you look like  _ shit. _ When’s the last time you slept, man? Before tonight, I mean?” He has to pause and rack his memories for that (and god knows that doesn’t work so well when he can barely even remember the past few days, much less the last time he had woken up). 

“Uh… What day is it?”

“Thursday.” 

“...Uh.” Was it Monday or Sunday he had woken on the bathroom floor with a throbbing headache? 

“ _ Steve. _ ” He would brush off Dustin’s complaint, but there’s a quiet desperation in his voice, a sadness that stabs at Steve’s heart. “Please, dude. Go back to sleep. I promise I’ll wake you up if something happens, okay? I promise. Just… please go back to sleep.” He doesn’t want to, would rather swallow hot coals, but meeting Dustin’s eyes is somehow even worse than eating embers. He doesn’t  _ like _ seeing for the first time how red-rimmed his eyes are, as if he’s been crying, doesn’t like seeing that sadness he’s heard in his voice reflected back in the eyes he’s seen disappear too many times in his nightmares. 

It’s worth it to hurt again, if Dustin will stop looking at him like he’s a dying man. God knows it can’t be worse than feeling like he’s betraying the kid all over again.

“You’ll stay here, huh?” A weak, gap-toothed smile is flashed at him, and Steve hopes to heaven and hell that the wateriness in Dustin’s eyes when he snorts out what could be a pitiful laugh is from relief, not upset. 

“Dumbass, I’m not going anywhere. You think I’ve gotten any sleep since you guys kicked me on the floor?” He pushes against Steve again, twists so he can rest his curls beneath Robin’s. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you up. I promise.” Steve can’t help but lay his arm over him, pulling him in. He doesn’t want to sleep, god, but maybe it will help. At the very least, it’ll make Dustin happy, and he knows that Robin’s worries will be somewhat assuaged if he rests. 

Finally, he forces himself to close his eyes again, to untense his shoulders. It isn’t long before sleep grabs him again, pulling him down. Maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe this time it’ll be okay.

\--

But why, why would that ever be the case? Not after hearing Robin sobbing against him, not after seeing betrayal again in Dustin’s eyes, not after feeling truly endangered again. Why would he think he could go again without those invading his dreams, think he could sleep without guilt and fear overtaking his mind?

\--

When he jerks awake with a whimper, the first thing that he realizes is that there’s pain and blood in his mouth, and that’s all it takes to convince him that it’s all real. The taste is harsh and the blood is warm in his mouth, and when he raises a hand to his face, he feels it dripping from the corner of his mouth onto his thumb. Pulling his hand away, he stares hard at it, waits for it to swim away or pale as the blood before has (and what a thing, to realize that you’ve been seeing things from sheer stress!), but it stays painfully real, a dark red that slowly trickles down to the quick of his thumbnail.

The second thing he realizes is that he’s cold, no pressure on him. He jerks his gaze away from the blood, darting his eyes around the room he’s in. Robin. Dustin. Nobody, nobody to be seen or heard, not a soul in the room but Steve, all alone again, waiting and waiting for the next blow--

He scrambles off of the couch, nearly falling on his face when his stiff legs refuse to work. “Shit!” Barely managing to catch himself, he pushes himself up, tenses when he hears footsteps thumping on the floor. Shit, shit,  _ shit. _ The blood is heavy in his mouth, and he swallows as the footsteps grow nearer, braces himself for whoever will come through the hallway. No weapon, but he’s not tied up anymore, not watching someone with a gun pressed to dirty blond curls, not hearing sobbing and screaming from somewhere in the distance--

“Steve?” He doesn’t even realize he’s half-raised his fists until they drop, surprise freezing him. Dustin stands there, rubbing his eye as if he’s just woken up, staring at him with surprise. “Steve, are you--” 

He doesn’t even know what he’s going to do until his body’s already moving, striding over to him and dropping down. Wrapping Dustin up in a hug, he pulls him close, nearly yanks him off of his feet with how desperately he pulls him close. He’s okay, he’s  _ okay,  _ god,  _ god.  _

“Shit--” Dustin wriggles in his grip before sinking down, looping one arm around Steve’s neck and one under his arms, a small hand pressing against his back. As much as Steve tries to fight it, he feels his breath hitch slightly when he registers again that Dustin is safe, feels his shoulders shake as he curls around the kid once again. “Shit, Steve, it’s okay, it’s  _ okay. _ ” A small hand gently reaches up to his hair, gingerly pats it (and if it’s right where he’d cracked his head against the tiles, the pain barely even registers as he closes his eyes, buries his face in Dustin’s shoulder). “You’re okay. We’re okay.”

There’s a quiet thump down the hall, more footsteps headed towards him; when he tenses, eyes flying open, Dustin lets out a panicked little yelp. “Whoa, dude, it’s okay, it’s just Robin.” Sure enough, Robin steps out of one of the rooms a moment later, eyes widening when she sees him sitting on the floor with Dustin. 

“Steve, shit--” She rushes over, drops to her knees before him. “Jesus, Steve, you’re  _ bleeding. _ ” She’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and she pulls the sleeve over her fist to gently wipe at the side of his mouth. “Did you bite your cheek?” Oh. That would explain why he’d been bleeding, at least. Not an injury inflicted, just a wound from a nightmare.

He’d much rather believe that than what that paranoid little part of his head that’s become not so little over the past couple weeks screams is true, that he’s back there, that this is the dream. He  _ hopes _ he isn’t dreaming. He doesn’t think he could even feel this tired in a nightmare.

“You’re not dreaming, Steve. Okay? We’re safe. You’re okay.”

He’s so  _ tired.  _ God, everything hurts, a tangible ache in his bones of exhaustion and fear and anxiety, finally tangible, finally  _ real. _ He’s spent so much time worrying, and now that he’s actually slept, actually felt some weight off his shoulders, it feels as if he’s even more worn out than he had been before. 

“I know, buddy,” Robin soothes, gently patting his cheek. “Come on, let’s go sit down on the couch, huh? Spent enough time on floors.” She stands and Dustin releases him, lets Robin give him a hand up before they both all but lift Steve to his feet. The hall spins, and he nearly falls against the wall. Shit.

“Whoa, dude, you okay?” Dustin sounds concerned, holding Steve’s elbow and helping to steady him. Now would probably be a good time to mention the probable concussion, huh? And so soon after the one the Russians had given him, too. “A  _ concussion? _ ” 

“Jesus, Steve,” Robin chides, more worry in her voice than anything else. “C’mon, we’re going to the couch now, there we go.” They guide him to the couch, and he sits on it with relief, trying to ignore how sore he was. How long had he been driving? 

“Christ, dude, you’re not supposed to drive with a concussion, I don’t even have a  _ license _ and I know that.” Yeah, no shit, kid. He knows. 

Robin sits beside him with a sigh, still holding his arm; Dustin does the same beside him, pressing close. It’s reassuring, to have the two of them there, warm pressure that reaffirms he’s  _ here. _ “What happened, Steve? You didn’t seem… quite this beat up last time I left.” Not beat up, just tired. Tired and paranoid and sleep deprived and miserable. “C’mon, bud, use your words and quit mumbling.” Mumbling? Oops.  _ God, _ he’s tired. His skin itches, though he’s almost too tired to care if there’s blood or not, imagined or real. Why is he so exhausted?

“I… Uh. Fell. Hit my head. And…” The succession of events is confusing, hard to get quite in order. “Didn’t want to sleep. Kept going back there. But I…” A smashed radio asking who he works for, dropped mugs on the kitchen floor. “I wanted out. So I took a road trip.” All the way to Illinois, somehow not driving into a ditch, even on such little sleep. His skin had felt less bloody, cleaner when he passed state lines; he absently raises a hand to his neck, testing to see if his skin is still dry. (And he should probably get that checked out, really, it’s not  _ good _ to keep feeling blood when there should be none there.)

“Christ, Steve. Did you get our radio transmission?” 

“Yeah. Came back to help.” And just what had that been about, anyways? They don’t seem worried about an outside threat, just about him. “What was the code red?”

“The code red was  _ you, _ dingus.” 

“Oh.” Oops. He hadn’t wanted to worry them, just wanted to get away for a little bit. “Sorry.” 

“Say you’re sorry when you’re actually lucid, dude.” Dustin pats his arm. “You look like shit. Do you want to go back to sleep? You weren’t out for long.” Fuck, no, he doesn’t. He may be tired, but he’d really rather not revisit being strapped to that chair, Robin screaming somewhere in the distance, Dustin standing before him with a silver barrel pressed to his temple--

“Jesus, Steve,  _ what?” _

Son of a bitch. Maybe he does need to sleep. Dustin is pale next to him, but Robin just looks… woefully understanding. 

“I get it, Steve. I do. Jesus, you think I’ve been sleeping much the past couple weeks?” She squeezes his arm gently, pulls him close and lets his head fall on her shoulder. “You still need to sleep, man. You need to be able to function. You can’t…” Blowing out a breath, she shrugs slightly. “You can’t die from fuckin’... starving yourself of everything. Not after surviving everything that happened, huh?” 

“Ms. Byers said we can stay here as long as we want,” Dustin adds quietly. “She just went out with Jonathan to pick up El and Nancy. The funerals aren’t until next week, anyways.” Steve nods, raises a hand to gently pat Dustin’s head. Yeah. Maybe he’ll stay for a bit. The tiny piece of his mind that still has any sense agrees, knows that he shouldn’t be left alone right now. He doesn’t  _ want _ to be alone. Alone is when the bad things come, when he feels like he’s never going to escape. With Robin and Dustin, here, at least he has some sense of comfort, however scant it may be.

He’ll stay for now.

“Thank you, Steve.” He nods again against Robin’s shoulder, tries desperately to force himself to close his eyes, to force himself  _ not _ to. It’s confusing. Everything is just tired and sad, and he doesn’t know whether he can trust himself to sleep again.

“We’ll stay here, Steve. Promise.” Dustin’s hands are still on his arm (they’re so  _ small _ Robin), and he can feel the kid leaning against him. He shouldn’t have to learn to comfort so young, shouldn’t have to help chase away night terrors for someone who’s supposed to be protecting  _ him. _

“Yeah. We’ll stay.” Robin shifts, moves away from him and pulls his head down onto her lap. Thin fingers gently comb through his hair, feeling at the bruise from his fall and moving away, nails scratching lightly against his scalp. It’s nice. Dustin’s hands begin to fall away from his arm, but he reaches up and catches one, tugs Dustin down on top of him.

“Hey--”

“You’re gonna make me sleep, you gotta sleep too,” he mumbles, pulling Dustin up so he can wrap his arms around the kid. He flails for a moment, then sighs, grumbling, “You’re  _ hot _ , dude, I’m gonna overheat like this.” Still, he doesn’t try to force his way out from Steve’s grasp, just shifts until he’s more comfortable. His still-healing ribs complain about being used as a human mattress, but he ignores the pain in favour of the comfort that sweeps him at knowing his friends are there.

“Go to sleep, Steve. We gotcha.” Robin’s voice is warm, if still a bit sad. No dream could be so kind, so warm as this. 

For the third time in the past night, day, whatever it’s been, he closes his eyes and falls asleep. 

For the first time in two weeks, he sleeps without nightmares, without pain, without bangs and screams and sobs. Just warmth and pressure, hazy orange and pear, gentle hands in his hair and a small hand on his arm. 

It’s the best sleep he’s had in  _ years. _

\--

He stays behind with Joyce and El when the funeral is over, people slowly filing to the reception. It feels like the whole town had come, officers and neighbors and friends of friends who Hopper had helped before in his own gruff way. She had spoken first and last, prepared a eulogy that he could tell she had almost been unable to finish. Everybody had spoken, it feels; everybody, no matter how long they had known him, had kind words to say. And yeah, perhaps they embellished his kind heart, perhaps they had fluffed him up a bit in death, but really, what was the harm? They all missed him. They all loved him.

When they hadn’t been speaking, Steve had sat between Robin and Joyce, one hand squeezing each of theirs, Dustin right beside Robin and El right beside Joyce, silently weeping. The poor girl was the only one unable to speak over him, at least not in front of the people. The rest of the party had been sitting behind and around them, Max the only one not shedding too many tears; Steve would suspect she was wrung dry of tears from Billy’s funeral two days before, but when he had swung by the reception to pick her up out of some strange sort of indebted feeling to Billy (even though he had been responsible for so many deaths, Steve knows in his gut it would have just been someone else who would eventually take his place. at least he had sacrificed himself to save El, to save them all), her eyes had been conspicuously dry, if red. Poor girl. Jonathan and Will each had hands on their mother’s shoulders, watching solemnly as people spoke. Steve knew that they knew better than anyone else that had Hopper not done what he had, Joyce would be the one in that empty casket right now. 

He had helped Joyce finish preparing for the funeral, guilty hat he’d been unable to help before. When he had apologized at their dining room table, she’d just smiled at him, sad and understanding. “Oh, honey, I wasn’t able to even think about planning this until they’d told me the ‘missing persons’ wait time was over. It’s okay. We’re all… struggling, I guess.” He’d nodded and reached across the table to squeeze her hand gently when the tears began to well in her eyes. He was--not happy, no, but satisfied, in some melancholy way--that he could be there for her, different from the sons she had tried so hard to stay strong for but still (he thinks, he hopes) someone she can lean on.

Now, though, they stand together over the half-buried hole in the ground, Steve squeezing Joyce’s hand as tears slowly track down her face, Joyce squeezing El’s as the girl wraps her arms around Joyce’s middle and cries into her blouse. The others are walking away, her sons shooed away at her request. He understands why she had wanted to be alone there with El; he just doesn’t understand why she had asked him to stay. Maybe it was so Jonathan and Will wouldn’t have to see her so vulnerable, so raw. He gets that.

After what feels like forever, Joyce sniffs and quietly says, “I dream about him, you know. When… When we were down there. When it happened. I had to…” She trails off, sniffs again. She’s already told him what had happened, perhaps not in detail, but enough that he knew she blamed herself for his death. At least she was wise enough to know that had she not, the girl clinging to her would be dead to, alongside her sons and the rest of the kids. Still, that’s two men who Steve suspects she loved in the course of a year. It’s more pain than the hardworking woman who clutches his hand deserves in any lifetime. “I keep remembering it. He smiled at me.” A shaky sigh; he hears El sniffle slightly. “I keep telling myself I did what I had to do. He knew exactly what he was in for. But… It hurts.” 

After a minute, he clears his throat, tries to will away the feeling of tears choking him. Not blood, anymore, not right now; just tears, painful and heavy. “The dreams are the worst. But you wake up from those, at least.” They’re painful, he knows. They’re knives digging at your heart every night, chipping away at the walls you build when you’re most vulnerable. 

He turns his head to look at her, sees the tears glinting in the July sunlight. She doesn’t look away from the hole in the ground, even when she asks quietly, “Do you think he…?” Her voice trails off, but she doesn’t need to finish her sentence. He knows what she’s thinking, what they’ve all been thinking. 

“I don’t know.” Nothing seems impossible at this point, not after what they’ve all been through. They both know that those who disappear without a trace can come back; even though it’s improbable, none of them can keep that small seed of hope from lodging in their hearts. She nods, squeezes his hand gently back. How strange to think these thin hands have fought wars; how strange to think that any of them have. Too small, too naive, too worn and weary.

But still, they go on.

El sniffs again, and Steve sees her draw slightly back. “Joyce?”

“Yeah, sweetie?” 

“Can I…” El pauses, hiccups slightly. “Can I talk? For him?” His heart twists painfully as he looks at her face, so young and miserable. She’s lost the first one to take her in as family perhaps in her whole life, lost the man who adopted her and protected her and gave her his last name, even after he’d already lost a daughter. What greater act of kindness could there be than to take someone into your home and name it as theirs, too? What family better than the one who chooses you?

“Of course, El.” Joyce’s voice seems close to breaking, but she nods, lets go of El’s hand. After a moment, the girl moves on shaky legs to go to the head of the grave, where the preacher had officiated the funeral, where he and Joyce and all the others had stood to speak once more for him. El takes a deep breath, wipes tears from her face before she starts to speak.

“Hop… was  _ family _ . He saved me. I was cold, and lonely, and he… he saved me. Saved everyone. He wanted to talk about emotions, even though I think… I don’t think he liked them.” He feels Joyce rest her head against his shoulder, releases her hand to draw her in. Tears soak both of their faces as El speaks, uncertain words with uncertain grammar wobbling through the air with certain love and pain. It hurts, hurts like a fresh wound, more than the torture had, he thinks. “I know I did things wrong. And he did, too. But he was  _ good. _ ” 

“Do the dreams ever stop?” she whispers, so quiet that he can barely hear it. El continues on, occasionally sniffing and wiping tears away from her pale face. No child that young should have to give a eulogy for their parent. No child should have to stay that strong.

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t know, doesn’t know if any of them will live without nightmares, live without feeling the gaping wounds in their hearts as if every day they’ve been torn anew. None of them will be okay, he thinks; not for a long, long while, at least. He knows the scars will never fully heal, both physical and mental; he knows that even when they think it’s all over, the nightmares will come back, make them bleed fresh again. They can’t escape that. None of them can, no matter how strong or determined they are. Sometimes, things will never end, not in their hearts or minds. “But that’s okay.”

Even if none of them are, even if none of them ever will be, it’s alright. They have each other, at least for now. They have some good left, memories and notes and tiny children they can hug and feel the heartbeats of, steady even through the pain. They have hands to hold and people to call, pictures and relics of those gone and those still there.

“Yeah.” She sniffs again, and he lets his head rest against hers, both of them watching El speak to Hopper one last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Steve's POV! I plan to do one more chapter from Dustin's eyes, and then that'll be this fic done. It probably won't be for a little bit; I'm writing something different that will remain unpublished until I have an actual plot for it, but it's currently taking over my life, so I can't really focus on writing anything else, haha. I do plan on writing more fics in this series, whenever that happens. Have a lovely day, y'all.

**Author's Note:**

> Swing by @lesbian-steveharrington on tumblr to chat about Steve with me.
> 
> If you suffer from PTSD, please know you are not alone. It feels lonely, and terrible, and like the world is ending. It's a constant battle, I know. But you are not alone, and there are people who want to help you. Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Hell, come talk to me if you need to.  
> You are not alone.


End file.
